Animal movies are a separate genre of cinematography. People like to watch the adventures of our lesser brothers. People have a special attitude to bears – since ancient times they have been honored, bowed before their strength. We offer you a list of bear movies in various genres.
Trail of the Panda
- IMDB Rating – 6.5
- Genre: Adventure, Family
- Production: China / 2009
- Director: Yu Zhong
- Starring: Daichi Harashima, Zhang Qi, Feng Li, Yu Zhong, Liu Chang, Sun Xinyu, Qi Kejian, Matthew King.
A family movie about the friendship of two orphans – a little boy and a panda bear cub. The boy came to the aid of an orphaned panda cub when it was in the crosshairs of poachers.
The panda has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records twice. First, bamboo bears are recognized as the most expensive zoo inhabitants. It costs 5 times more to keep pandas than elephants. The main part of the cost is the rent to China, since all the pandas in the world belong only to this country.
For the second time the panda is listed in the Book of Records as the most attractive animal in the world.
Bear Named Winnie
- IMDB Rating – 6.9
- Genre: Drama, Military
- Production: Canada / 2004
- Director: John Kent Harrison
- Starring: Michael Fassbender, Gil Bellows, David Souchette, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Young, Aaron Ashmore, Ted Atherton, Robert Gauvin, Joshua J. Ballard, Miriam Smith.
A bear named Winnie lives in a London zoo. During the First World War, she had to part with her owner – Lieutenant Harry Colebourne of the Canadian Army. He saved the tiny animal from death and named it in honor of his native city of Winnipeg. After the end of the war, seeing what joy she brought to the zoo visitors, Harry left the bear in London.
The movie is based on real events. One of the enthusiastic visitors to the zoo was little Christopher Robin Milne. The boy was so impressed by the bear that he named his teddy bear Winnie. It was the toy Winnie who became the prototype of Winnie the Pooh in Alan Milne’s famous book.
Bear’s Kiss
- IMDB Rating – 6.2
- Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Melodrama
- Production: Germany, Sweden, Russia, Spain, France, Italy / 2002
- Budget: $6,500,000
- Worldwide box office: $209,531
- Director: Sergei Bodrov
- Starring: Rebeca Liljeberg, Sergei Bodrov Jr., Joachim Krul, Keith Allen, Maurizio Donadoni, Ann-Marie Pisani, Marcela Musso, Ariadna Gil, Silvio Orlando, Yuri Alexandrov.
A movie about the love between a bear and a man. Sometimes a man turns into a beast and very rarely the opposite happens. Bear Misha is lucky to become a human, but to stay a human, you have to fulfill one condition. You must not kill anyone under any circumstances for just one year. A seemingly easy condition to fulfill. But Misha was not so lucky.
The main role in the movie was played by Russian actor and director Sergei Bodrov, who died during the collapse of the Kolka Glacier in the Karmadon Gorge. Bear’s Kiss” is the actor’s last work.
Mr. Zoo: The Missing VIP
- IMDB Rating – 5.7
- Genre: Comedy, Action, Detective, Fantasy
- Production: Korea South / 2020
- Worldwide Box Office: $4,832,518
- Director: Kim Tae-young
- Starring: Lee Sung-min, Ingu, Shin Ha-kyung, Kim So-hyun, Bae Jong-nam, Kal So-won, David Lee McInnis, Yoo In-na, Kim Soo-mi, Lee Sung-kyung
To celebrate its friendship with South Korea, China sends an envoy to Seoul. The VIP is very capricious and all her habits, from food to lodging, must be taken into account. The important guest’s name is Minmin, and she is a panda.
But Minmin is kidnapped, and Chu, a member of the secret service, is called in to find her. Chu has recently had an accident, after which he has a superpower to understand the language of animals.
Panda diplomacy is a tool used by the People’s Republic of China to improve relations with foreign countries. Large pandas act as gifts to states with which China wants to build relations.
Gentle Ben
- IMDB Rating – 5.9
- Genre: Drama, Family
- Production: USA / 2002
- Directed by: David S. Kass.
- Starring: Dean Cain, Corbin Bernsen, William Catt, Martin Cove, Raleigh McClendon, Ashley Lawrence, Gil Birmingham, Stephen Bridgewater, David Atkinson.
Two feature films about the adventures of a teenager Mark and his unusual friend – a black American bear named Ben. In the bear, the boy finds a loyal friend, and together they clean up an oil company that is polluting the environment.
Grizzly bears are omnivorous and 75% of their diet is plant-based: berries, acorns, nuts, roots, tubers, and grass stems. They may also eat insects, fish, carrion, and mammals.
Grizzly Falls
- IMDB Rating – 5.9
- Genre: Drama, Adventure
- Production: UK, Canada, USA / 1999
- US box office receipts: $168,874
- Director: Stuart Rafffil
- Starring: Brian Brown, Tom Jackson, Oliver Tobias, Richard Harris, Daniel Clarke, Chantelle Dick, Trevor Louden, Marnie McPyle, Ken Kramer, Brock Simpson.
During a hunt for a giant American grizzly bear, an accident occurs. A female bear who has lost her offspring drags away the boy Harry. Instead of disposing of the child, the bear gently cares for the boy. Meanwhile, Harry’s father does not give up hope of finding his son and hires a professional cold-blooded hunter to capture the bear.
One of the best classic movies about bears and their life in the wild. The filming involved a trained bear cub who was in the same frame as the boy.
The Golden Compass
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Family
- Production: USA, UK / 2007
- Budget: $180,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $372,234,864
- Director: Chris Weitz
- Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Ben Walker, Freddie Highmore, Ian McKellen, Eva Green, Jim Carter, Tom Courtney, Ian McShane.
A movie about the adventures of a girl Lyra Belacqua in a world where witches rule, and each person has a “dæmon” – an animal that accompanies him all his life. In the country small children disappear, and Lyra found out where they are. To free the unfortunate children, the brave girl joins forces with a clan of northern witches and a huge armored bear.
A steampunk movie based on the book “Northern Lights” by F. Pullman. Steampunk is a trend of science fiction about an alternative variant of the development of mankind, which has mastered mechanics and steam engines with stylization of the Victorian England era.
The Edge
- IMDB Rating – 7.0
- Genre: Action, Thriller, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA / 1997
- Budget: $30,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $43,312,294
- Director: Lee Tamahori
- Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Elle Macpherson, Harold Perrineau, Bart Bear, L.C. Jones, Kathleen Wilhoit, David Lindstead, Mark Keeley, Eli Gabay.
Billionaire Charles Morse is involved in a plane crash in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. The pilot died, but the millionaire and his two traveling companions survived. The men will need to walk dozens of miles to the nearest shelter without clothes, food or weapons. They will have to rely on each other to survive. Complicating matters is the fact that they are being followed by a man-eating bear.
Bloodthirsty forest predator in the tape played by a four-legged actor Bart, who starred in more than 20 films. Bart is a well-known personality, he has a page on Kinopoisk.
Backcountry
- IMDB Rating – 6.0
- Genre: Horror, Thriller, Drama, Adventure
- Production: Canada / 2014
- US box office receipts: $13,848
- Director: Adam MacDonald
- Starring: Missy Peregrim, Jeff Roop, Nicholas Campbell, Eric Balfour
The movie tells about what human arrogance and carelessness can lead to. A young couple, Alex and Jenn, decided to spend a weekend in a picturesque national park.
Self-confident Alex leads his girlfriend on a new route, eventually the hapless tourists lose their way. Unfortunately, they attract the attention of a huge black bear hunting nearby.
The movie is based on the real events that took place in September 2005 in the park of Lake Missinaibi (Ontario, Canada). As a result of a predatory bear attack on a couple, the woman died of her wounds.
China: The Panda Adventure
- IMDB Rating – 5.9
- Genre: Drama
- Production: USA / 2001
- Worldwide box office receipts: $6,784,985
- Director: Robert M. Yang
- Starring: Maria Bello, Xia Yu, Xander Berkeley, Bill Hayes, Paul Pape
The 1930s. In those days, the bamboo panda bear was considered a curiosity and no one could get the animal alive. Ruth Harkness’s husband died in China, where he observed pandas. The man’s dream was to introduce this amazing animal to the whole world. Ruth will have to follow in her husband’s footsteps and find out what pandas are really like.
The movie is based on real events. In 1937, the American Ruth Harkness managed to find a baby panda and with documents for the transportation of the dog brought to the United States. The panda was named Su Lin and became the first living panda that America saw.
Walking Out
- IMDB Rating – 5.8
- Genre: Thriller, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA / 2017
- US box office receipts: $101,947
- Director: Alex Smith, Andrew J. Smith
- Starring: Matt Bomer, Josh Wiggins, Bill Pullman, Alex Nystadter, Lily Gladstone, Ken White
Hunter Cal has completely lost contact with his teenage son David. The boy lives in the city with his mom and is not used to the harsh life in the backcountry of Montana. In order to connect, the man organizes an elk hunt, but things don’t go according to plan right away.
The blood of the butchered animal has attracted a dangerous predator. Fleeing from the enraged bear, David accidentally wounds his father in the leg. And there’s still a long journey home ahead.
The film is based on the story of the same name by American travel writer David Quammen, who lives in Montana and travels extensively.
The Polar Bear King
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Family
- Production: Norway, Sweden, Germany, France / 1991
- Director: Ula Solum
- Starring: Jak Fjeldstad, Maria Bonnevie, Tobias Hösl, Monika Nordqvist, Anna-Lotta Larsson, Helge Jurdal, Marika Enstad, Kristin Mack, Rüdiger Kulbrodt.
A fairy tale movie about a polar bear and a princess. Young King Valemon was turned into a polar bear by an evil sorceress in revenge for his refusal to marry. The beautiful princess, who was met by the bear, managed to unbind the beast with a kiss, but only halfway. At night, the king turns back into a dangerous predator.
The film is based on the beloved Swedish folk tale by Carlson’s creator, Astrid Lindgren – “The Three Magic Leaves”.
Wild Grizzly
- IMDB Rating – 4.2
- Genre: Action, Adventure, Family
- Production: USA / 2000
- Director: Sean McNamara
- Starring: Riley Smith, Michelle Green, Fred Dryer, Courtney Peldon, Steve Reavis, Daniel Baldwin, Brendan O’Brien, John O’Hurley, Ron Rogge, Valerie Bickford.
Teenager Josh moved with his mom to a small northern town where the local sheriff got him a job at the local nursery. Josh cared for the bears and developed a love for these animals.
One day a bear cub from the kennel was on the loose and started terrorizing the town. The locals want to kill the dangerous animal, but the guy has to save him. He guesses why the bear became so aggressive and how to help her.
Grizzly is an American subspecies of brown bear. It lives mainly in Alaska and western Canada. A small population of grizzlies remains in Montana, near Yellowstone.
True Heart
- IMDB Rating – 5.2
- Genre: Drama, Adventure, Family
- Production: USA / 1997
- Director: Katherine Kieran
- Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Zachary Ty Bryan, August Schellenberg, Day Young, Michael Gross, Tom Macbeth, Ben Cardinal, John Novak, Vincent Gale, Darren Moo.
Twins Sam and Bonnie are the only survivors of a plane crash. But the plane crashed in a remote area, and the teenagers have to find their way to people on their own.
Luckily the children are found by an Indian Honanesta who takes them to the nearest village. The trio will have a dangerous journey through the forest thicket, where ravenous bears and no less dangerous poachers roam.
Alaska
- IMDB Rating – 5.8
- Genre: Adventure, Family
- Production: USA / 1996
- Budget: $23,000,000
- US box office receipts: $11,829,959
- Director: Frasier Clark Heston
- Starring: Thora Birch, Vincent Kartheiser, Dirk Benedict, Charlton Heston, Duncan Fraser, Gordon Toutousis, Ben Cardinal, Ryan Kent, Don S. Davis, Dolly Madsen.
Family adventure movie. The Barnes family lives in Alaska, consisting of a single father and two teenage children, Jesse and Sean. The father of the family, Jake Barnes, works as a pilot, and one day his plane goes down in the vicinity of Devil’s Thumb Mountain. Jesse and Sean go in search of their father, and they have an unexpected helper – a polar bear Cubby.
Each American state has its own laws, and Alaska is no exception. For example, in the state it is forbidden to wake up a sleeping bear in order to take a picture with it.
The Amazing Panda Adventure
- IMDB Rating – 5.8
- Genre: Drama, Adventure, Family
- Production: USA / 1995
- US box office receipts: $7,506,759
- Director: Christopher Kane
- Starring: Stephen Lang, Ryan Slater, Yi Ding, Wang Fei, Zhou Jian Rong, Yao Er Ga, Oh Mi Gia Kang, He Yu, Ye Hui
Teenager Ryan Tyler flies to China for vacation, where his father Michael works in a nature reserve. The boy’s adventure in China became the most memorable in his life. When poachers trapped a panda and kidnapped its cub, Ryan and a local girl Lin found it. Now the boy faces a difficult task – to protect the baby from the poachers and reunite him with his panda mom.
There is a blatant movie gaffe in the tape. When the river brings Ryan to dry land, it is clearly seen that his hair is wet, but his clothes are dry.
Jonathan of the Bears
- IMDB Rating – 6.4
- Genre: Action, Western
- Production: Italy, Russia / 1994
- Director: Enzo G. Castellari
- Starring: Franco Nero, John Saxon, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman, David Hess, Rodrigo Obregón, Clive Ritchie, Ennio Girolami, Bobby Rhodes, Marie Louise, Boris Khmelnitsky.
Jonathan’s parents were killed and the boy was rescued by a wild bear. Jonathan grew up in the forest under the care of the beast until he was found by an Indian named Tawanka. After many years Jonathan returns to his native settlement, where he has to protect the Indians from the arbitrary rule of the local authorities and gets a chance to take revenge on his parents’ murderers.
The film is a co-production between Italy and Russia, shot entirely at the training ground of the 2nd Red Banner Taman Motorized Rifle Division in Alabino. The film was sponsored by Silvio Berlusconi’s company.
Into the Grizzly Maze
- IMDB Rating – 5.3
- Genre: Horror, Action, Thriller, Drama, Adventure
- Production: USA, Canada / 2013
- Budget: $10,000,000
- Director: David Hackl
- Starring: Thomas Jane, James Marsden, Piper Perabo, Billy Bob Thornton, Scott Glenn, Michaela McManus, Adam Beach, Kelly Karren, Reese Alexander, Louise D’Olivera.
One of the American bear horror movies. Ever since poachers killed a female bear and cubs, a giant grizzly bear has been taking revenge on humans. Two brothers – ex-convict Rowan and deputy sheriff Beckett, must forget about all the contradictions and save the population of the town from this terrible predator.
It was planned that the main role in the movie will perform Adrien Brody. In the end, the role went to another American actor, James Marsden.
Russian business
- IMDB Rating – 4.1
- Genre: Comedy
- Production: Russia / 1993
- Director: Mikhail Kokshenov, Mark Eisenberg
- Starring: Saveliy Kramarov, Mikhail Kokshenov, Semyon Farada, Irina Feofanova, Vadim Zakharchenko, Natalia Krachkovskaya, Mikhail Lebedev, S. Kutuzov, O. Epstein, Alexei Voityuk
Early 90s, Russia, the era of “wild” capitalism. Two unemployed men come up with a scam to invite foreigners to a “Russian safari” – a hunt for a real brown bear. The circus bear Gosha will have to play the victim of the hunters, and he will have to fulfill this role more than once and more than twice. And in order for foreigners not to notice the trick, according to an old Russian tradition, you should drink vodka before the hunt.
Saveliy Kramarov’s last role in a movie and actor Mikhail Kokshenov’s debut as a film director.
Unnatural
- IMDB Rating – 4.0
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, action, thriller
- Production: USA / 2015
- Budget: $3,000,000
- Director: Hank Braxton
- Starring: James Rimar, Sherilyn Fenn, Ron Carlson, Graham Greene, Allegra Carpenter, Ray Wise, K’Orianka Kilcher, Stephanie Hodos, Gregory Norman Cruz
Ambitious photographer Brooking conceived a spectacular photo shoot – charming girls on the background of the white snows of Alaska. Right during the shoot they are attacked by a monster, either a bear or a wolf. It turned out that in the biolaboratory of the company “Kloburch” were conducted experiments with the genome of polar bears, and one day the creation of scientists went out of control.
The polar bear is the largest land predator. Since the polar bear spends almost all of its time on ice, it can be considered a marine mammal.
Grizzly Park
- IMDB Rating – 4.0
- Genre: Horror, Thriller
- Production: USA / 2007
- Director: Tom Scull
- Starring: Glenn Morshower, Shadrack Anderson III, Susan Blakely, Brody Bear, Ryan Culver, Trevor Peterson, Whitney Cummings, Emily Baldoni, Sulai Enao, Rance Howard
A group of troubled teenagers is sent to the Grizzly Park Nature Reserve for community service. Living in a campground, far from home, the kids will have to clean up trash and beautify the park.
The season is already closed and the park is empty except for teenagers and wildlife. Left unsupervised by their elders, one of the boys falls into a trap and the smell of blood attracts a huge grizzly bear.
Thriller tagline: “Look away, the killer bear is following you…”
Bear (2009)
- IMDB Rating – 2.8
- Genre: Horror, Thriller, Drama
- Production: USA / 2009
- Budget: $10,000,000
- Director: Roel Rein
- Starring: Brendan Michael Coughlin, Patrick Scott Lewis, Katie Lowes, Bill Rumpley, Mary Alexandra Stiefvater
While traveling in an old van, two couples decided to take a shortcut and went straight through the forest. Suddenly, the car hit a female bear and the young men, in a state of passion, shot the animal.
At the noise, a male grizzly came running out of the forest and attacked the men. The young people fled in a van, but they cannot move from the place, as the car is badly damaged. Neither the people nor the predator want to give way.
There are approximately 40 bear attacks on humans worldwide each year, of which one in seven ends in human death. Most of the attacks are provoked by improper and risky human behavior.
The Bear (1988)
- IMDB Rating – 7.7
- Genre: Drama, Adventure, Family
- Production: France, USA / 1988
- US box office receipts: $31,753,898
- Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
- Starring: Bart the Bear, Cheki Cario, Jack Wallace, André Lacombe
The main characters in this French drama are bears. British Columbia, 1885. A baby bear cub is orphaned, its mother bear was crushed by a rocky block. But the cub was lucky, he met an adult wounded bear who took him in. The new friend teaches the cub to fish and hunt, and to defend himself against his enemies.
The feature film about a bear is based on the novel “Grizzly” by James Oliver Curwood. The role of an adult bear was played by Bart the bear, whose filmography consists of more than 20 movies. In order to prevent Bart from tearing up a small bear cub on the set, he was accustomed to a toy model of the same color and size.
Egorka
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Comedy, Adventure, Family
- Production: USSR / 1984
- Director: Alexander Yanovsky
- Starring: Mikhail Pugovkin, Gennady Voronin, Alexei Veselkin, Andrei Kostyakin, Igor Savkin, Igor Zolotovitsky, Anatoly Ivanov, Boris Gitin, Alexander Baluev, Igor Bochkin.
A Soviet feature film about the extraordinary adventures of Egorka, a bear cub rescued by military sailors. The sailors are sure that the strict bosun will definitely send Egorka to the zoo, and they hide the bear cub all over the ship.
But the fidgety little boy is eager to escape from his rescuers and get in front of the strict boss. And, of course, one day it happens. But the meeting with the bosun is not the end of the funny bear cub’s adventures.
The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Pyotr Gavrilov.
